Last Night: Temptation Judo

The Japanese word Judo means "gentle way."

As opposed to many other forms of martial arts that emphasize techniques of attack, the aim of Judo is to use the attacker's body mechanics and forward momentum against him or her.

In short, resisting a more powerful opponent will result in your defeat, whilst adjusting to and evading your opponent's attack will cause him to lose his balance, his power will be reduced, and you will defeat him. This can apply whatever the relative values of power, thus making it possible for weaker opponents to beat significantly stronger ones. This is the theory of ju yoku go o seisu. (Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, quoted at Wikipedia)

George Thompson, an inner city police officer, adapted the philosophies of judo to create Verbal Judo, a method of defusing confrontations. His book, Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion, has been used to train not only law enforcement and military officers, but negotiators in business and politics. It teaches how to use the aggressive verbal attacks of others as leverage to move them toward more constructive conversation.

Judo's principle of defense by making use of the opponent's offense can be adapted to many areas of life, including spiritual warfare.

I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me. John 14:30

In Matthew 4 we're told of Satan's efforts to tempt Jesus while He was fasting for 40 days in the wilderness. He tried to tempt Jesus in the areas of physical needs, power, and wealth. At the core, though, the "prince of the world" was trying to divert Jesus from His mission.

The devil didn't stop tempting Jesus to veer from His purpose after He left the wilderness. Jesus dealt with continual diversionary tactics throughout His ministry.

Jesus' mother and family were sent to plead with Him to stop embarrassing them and come home. Adoring crowds were sent to follow Him around, begging for Him to put on a spectacular show or to lead them in a rebellion. Simon Peter was pushed to chide Jesus for wanting to submit to being sacrificed.

Now, on this last night, Jesus is determined to slam the door once and for all on those temptations. And He's going to defeat Satan Judo-style.

His adversary is getting ready to throw everything he's got at Jesus. He has compromised Judas, one of Jesus' inner circle. He has hardened the hearts of the Sanhedrin to the point where they want Jesus dead. He has weakened Pilate's resolve through political subterfuge.

He's finally going to win by doing away with Him altogether.

And Jesus is going to let him. He will embrace the betrayal and the jealousy and the political conniving and the fickleness of the crowds and let them carry Him to the cross and to the grave.

Which is exactly what He came to do. By losing His life, He saves the lives of millions.

In Judo it's called ippon: victory in one move.

Perhaps I could learn a lesson from this. Satan has some favorite strategies he uses against me, pushing my hot buttons over and over. Could I go with the flow of those attacks and use them to win my own spiritual battles? Could you?

The Most Powerful Thing

Operation Crossroads
Photo by US Department of Defense

On the morning of July 25th, 1946, my father witnessed what he later described as the most powerful thing he ever saw. On that day, he stood on the deck of the USS Rockbridge, one of 175 support ships participating in Operation Crossroads, the U.S. government's atomic bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.

Bikini had been chosen because its roughly circular reefs would contain the worst of any tidal waves produced by the detonation. At least that was the hope. A "ghost fleet" of damaged and moth-balled ships, both American and Japanese, were gathered within the circle of the atoll, to test the effect of the bomb on large ships at sea.

As the countdown neared zero, my father and the other seamen, "safely" aboard their own vessels just a few short miles outside the barrier reef, watched with unshielded eyes as they listened to the final seconds of the countdown.

The bomb exploded with a force equal to 23,000 tons of TNT. An enormous surge of water exploded from beneath the surface of the sea, instantly creating a dome a mile high, lit like a million lightbulbs by the energy of the explosion within.

My father spoke in awe of seeing a ship carried aloft by the enormous water spout - probably the 203-foot amphibious landing craft that had anchored the underwater bomb - suspended atop the dome for what seemed an eternity.

An enormous shock wave rushed outward and upward at 3,500 miles per hour, tossing the test ships - battleships and destroyers - like toy boats in a child's bathtub. The Bikini atoll took and withstood the primary impact, allowing only a fraction of the surging sea to escape. This remnant wave carried enough residual force to toss the observation ships roughly about in the water.

The hot winds, emanating from a core hotter than the sun itself, blew past the watching navy, until finally the force of the bomb was spent.

At the epicenter of the blast, a vast crater had been formed in the sea by the sudden upthrust of waters. This cavity soon imploded, sucking the waters and the mangled test ships into its vortex. The resulting tidal waves, towering high over the target ships, rushed outward at a speed of over 60 miles per hour, engulfing everything in it's path, leaving a downpour of radioactive water covering everything.

My father never forgot the display of power he witnessed that day.


My mother, after one of my father's retelling of these memories, told of an experience of her own.

"The most powerful thing I've ever witnessed," she said, "was a man, several years ago - I can't recall his name - he came to church now and then at the invitation of several members. We all knew him, knew he was a basically good man, but obstinate against the church and against God. We had all tried talking to him, time and again, but he stubbornly refused to give in. He continued to show up now and then, but with no response."

"After several years of this, he came to a revival meeting. I think it was on about the third night, after a rousing sermon, the evangelist was winding down, introducing the invitation hymn.

"This man I'm talking about stood up and turned his back to the preacher. He marched briskly to the rear of the church. I thought, Oh, no, he's finally had enough. He's leaving.

"We stood to sing, and as we launched into the first verse, here he came, marching, ramrod straight, firm steps, directly toward the preacher at the front of the congregation, where he made his confession and was baptized that night."

"That," she concluded, a tear in her eye, "was the most powerful thing I've ever seen."

Ray Lewis' Chase

It won't surprise anyone who knows me that I didn't watch the Super Bowl the other night.  My top ten favorite sports are college baseball.

But yesterday I did see a clip of Shannon Sharpe's interview with Ray Lewis during the Super Bowl pre-game show.  I do watch The Daily Show, which is where I saw the clip.

The Baltimore Ravens' linebacker was involved with the wrong people in a bad situation in 2000, and found himself involved in some way with the murder of two people.  He pleased guilty to obstruction of justice and testified against others who were convicted of involvement in the murder.  Many people still think he was more involved than he admits, and literally got away with murder.  

I certainly don't know the truth, and neither do you. But questions remain, and Shannon Sharpe asked Ray Lewis about those allegations in his his pre-game interview with Lewis on Sunday.

Ray Lewis has since become a Christian and has been involved in many activities expressing his faith.  Like happens with a number of celebrity conversions, sometimes it seems like humility is the toughest spiritual battle Ray Lewis faces.

I can't come down on him too hard for that, since I have my own spiritual battles to fight.

I reacted with quick anger, however, to one of his statements in the interview. Part of Lewis' explanation of why we should believe he is innocent of the murders is because God is using him in so many great ways.  The quote, and the video:

"If you really knew the way God works, He don't use people who commits anything like that , for His glory.  No way. It's the total opposite."

I've been involved in prison ministry for the past 8 years, and I would very much like to introduce Ray Lewis to some of the murderers I've known.  I've changed their names.

He should meet Alice, who spent over three decades in prison for the murder of her husband.  For much of those 30+ years she quietly set an example of patient faith and endurance, and was responsible for bringing dozens of convicted women to a conviction about their sin and God's grace.

Among the women who followed Alice to God were Beth, another battered wife who killed her husband, and Charlotte, convicted for conspiracy to commit murder.  Both of them carried on Alice's ministry of bringing other women to the Lord.

I could introduce Ray Lewis to Martha and Nancy, both in prison for causing the death of their own children.  Both arrived in prison totally wrecked, consumed with guilt, and a bit mentally unhinged over their experiences.  Both found forgiveness in the arms of the Lord, and both have been used by God in very powerful ways as witnesses to other fallen women of the truth that God will forgive and can work in the life of any one, no matter how heinous their sins.

And Althea, the church lady, the grandmother, the Sunday School teacher, who found herself in a horrible situation and made the wrong choices, resulting in being sent to prison for conspiracy to commit murder. As soon as she landed in the county jail, she began reading her Bible every day, which drew attention from other women there.  She would read with them and explain what she was reading, and answer their questions.  

In the state prison, she opened her Bible again, starting with Day 1, and again drew interest and questions.  She spent her time in the prison as a spiritual mother, teaching dozens of younger women about the Bible, answering their questions, counseling them, helping them to get through their shared ordeal with faith and a heart of peace.

In the final 30 days of her sentence, she was moved back to the county jail back home, where she began reading her Bible as always.  there was one other young woman in the pod with her, and she asked Althea to read to her.  Over the next thirty days, other women came and went, and they all would sit and listen to Althea and pour their hearts out to her and to God.

On the day Althea was finally scheduled to be released to go home, the only woman left was that same young woman that was her first pod-mate a month earlier.  She asked Althea, "Who is going to read me the Bible when you're gone?"

Althea closed her bible and handed it to the young woman. "You keep this," she said.  "I can get another one."

The young woman thanked her, but said she wished Althea could stay and read with her.

"No," she answered, "it's time for me to go.  I know now why I ended up in prison all these years.  It was for you and all the other girls like you.  But I've done what He asked me to do, and now it's time for me to go home."

Ray Lewis says he wants his epitaph to say "A man chasing after God's own heart."  If he truly is that man, he'll learn that God can indeed use people who commit things like that, for His glory.

And he can use you and me, too.